A return to religion – in a way

SUNDAY, 25 NOVEMBER 2018

This year may end up seeing my return to religion.

I have rediscovered “god” in a way – the incredibly powerful presence that punishes you if you don’t have a good relationship with “him”, but if you can make peace with “him” the world is your oyster.

Faith this time around is also practical. You are invited to think about it … and if you see that it makes sense, you can transform your life. If you don’t want to accept it, you won’t be condemned to hell at the end of your earthly existence, but your earthly existence may be sufficiently miserable to serve as your personal hell.

Of course, I speak here of the view that it matters how you think of yourself and your life, and about you relationship with money.

THURSDAY, 29 NOVEMBER 2018

Positive thoughts, developing a healthy mind and body as part of a process of creating a good life, a positive relationship with an ever-present force, the idea that this way of thinking is like a muscle that needs to be exercised regularly and strengthened … does it all ring a bell?

This morning I imagined how it would be if one had to manage this positive, creative approach to life as other people manage their commitment to Evangelical Christianity, or then as I approached it in my teens and early twenties. Examples include having to meditate for a few minutes every night before going to bed, and every morning after you get up, and maybe to read a page or two from a book on positive thinking or self-improvement. You may also need to make peace with money (definitely an important issue in my case), and start a new, positive relationship with it. (If you want to put an interesting spin on it, you can of course refer to it as Money, with a capital letter.) Your relationship with other people you come into contact with is also affected. Instead of reacting to other people’s negative stimuli, you decide to focus on the positive as far as possible, and not allow yourself to be drawn into someone else’s negative space. Lastly, it also includes – if you are fortunate – regular meetings with people who think and believe like you, to confirm and strengthen your outlook on and approach to life.

The fact is, you either drive through life with no specific outlook, purpose or vision, and simply respond to things people say and do, and to events that affect you, or you deliberately choose a particular view of life that enables you to function better in the community where you live, to do more with your life, and ultimately to be happier, and perhaps to even have a positive effect on other people’s lives. Some people choose institutionalised religion with centuries-old traditions. Other people choose to believe certain things about the functioning of the human body, and how the brain and personality work. (There are, of course, many people in both camps.)

Both the traditionally religious who take daily actions and think and communicate in a particular way, and the person who believes in positive thinking and constantly improving themselves, who also take certain actions on a daily basis, and who thinks and communicates in a certain way, would recognise something in the other – an attempt to live your life in a way that works better than just taking every day as it comes, until you expire.

______________________